Jean Hegland is the author of The Life Within: Celebration of a Pregnancy. She lives with her husband and three children in northern California on fifty-five acres of second-growth forest. She is at work on her next novel, which explores the issues of motherhood.
“[A] beautifully written and often profoundly moving novel.”—San
Francisco Chronicle
“A work of extraordinary power, insight and lyricism, Into the
Forest is both an urgent warning and a passionate celebration of
life and love.”—Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the
Blade
“From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest
voice of the . . . narrator pull the reader in. . . . A truly
admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of
George Orwell's 1984.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Beautifully written.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This beautifully written story captures the essential nature of
the sister bond: the fierce struggle to be true to one’s own self,
only to learn that true strength comes from what they are able to
share together.”—Carol Saline, co-author of Sisters
“Jean Hegland’s sense of character is firm, warm, and wise. . . .
[A] fine first novel.”—John Keeble, author of Yellowfish
"[A] beautifully written and often profoundly moving
novel."-San Francisco Chronicle
"A work of extraordinary power, insight and lyricism, Into the
Forest is both an urgent warning and a passionate celebration of
life and love."-Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the
Blade
"From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest
voice of the . . . narrator pull the reader in. . . . A truly
admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of
George Orwell's 1984."-Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
"Beautifully written."-Kirkus Reviews
"This beautifully written story captures the essential nature of
the sister bond: the fierce struggle to be true to one's own self,
only to learn that true strength comes from what they are able to
share together."-Carol Saline, co-author of Sisters
"Jean Hegland's sense of character is firm, warm, and wise. . . .
[A] fine first novel."-John Keeble, author of
Yellowfish
Hegland's powerfully imagined first novel will make readers thankful for telephones and CD players while it underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology. The tale is set in the near future: electricity has failed, mail delivery has stopped and looting and violence have destroyed civil order. In Northern California, 32 miles from the closest town, two orphaned teenage sisters ration a dwindling supply of tea bags and infested cornmeal. They remember their mother's warnings about the nearby forest, but as the crisis deepens, bears and wild pigs start to seem less dangerous than humans. From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest voice of the 17-year-old narrator pull the reader in, and the fight for survival adds an urgent edge to her coming-of-age story. Flashbacks smartly create a portrait of the lost family: an iconoclastic father, artistic mother and two independent daughters. The plot draws readers along at the same time that the details and vivid writing encourage rereading. Eating a hot dog starts with "the pillowy give of the bun," and the winter rains are "great silver needles stitching the dull sky to the sodden earth." If sometimes the lyricism goes a little too far, this is still a truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell's 1984 and Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker. (July)
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